2009
IKON customers and independent dealers: what say you?
The Three Prospectives:
Customer: After exhaustive demo's, painful presentations of one copier rep after another, a dizzying amount of contract analysis, and final negotiations, you settle on a slightly more expensive, Canon copier fleet, provided by IKON.
Today you find yourself in the 2nd year of a three year agreement and your IKON rep wants to "move" you into a Ricoh.
Independent Dealer: You weren't around for the
IKON/Alco Standard days, so you worked directly with Canon or Ricoh or maybe Sharp or Toshiba - over the years, you competed with Xerox, RBS, CBS, IKON and all the rest. You hesitantly moved from analog to digital, and heard all the "hoopla" around Electronic Document Management and "Solution Sales".
When
Global came around you said, "no thanks...". You hired solid technicians who knew their way around belts and rollers and fusers and corona wires like nobody else. You delivered and set up copiers, and plugged them into the network - letting your client's "IT Guy" take care of the scanning and print drivers.
You remained true to the hardware.
As time moved forward, your collection of customers provided a steady stream of business - the owner often made sales calls.
RiKon Account Exec, Sales Person, et el: September of 2006 you closed and installed a small fleet of Canon copiers, 5020's and a 105.
Today, the agreement is within the 12 month renewal window, is part of your upgradable MIF and therefore used to calculate your yearly goal. You have always conducting your quarterly customer reviews, your service technicians have always been on time, and every service call has been a "one call, closed ticket" call.
Your customer's invoice has never been wrong, and overages have always been correct. Your customer and your crack Professional Services team toiled for months connecting the Canons to their legacy AS-400 system and getting the 105 to talk to the marketing department's Apple's.
Your customer loves Canon; but you don't sell Canon anymore, do you? And one more thing, nobody WANTS to buy a new copier but EVERYBODY wants to know more about this thing called Managed Print Services.
Also, this time around, your are setting down and talking with "the guy from IT"- not to discuss Documentum or KOFAX , you are talking about leasing, buyout amounts, and educating him on CPC and all of his overage charges.
This "IT guy" has five flat panel displays at his desk; one shows his network traffic, three are filled with custom built spreadsheets, he analyzes everything down to the granular level, the fourth screen is filled with WoW.
With a double click, he proudly shows you his "Copier Analysis Spreadsheet" - no less than 12 vendors names fill the first column, there are 23 columns of "decision criteria" - and this was one of your MIF accounts.
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It hasn't even been a year since the announcement of the Ricoh/IKON deal but the merger looks like it is working without too many hitches. There may be some "internal" challenges, but the systems appear to be working as it was before the assimilation.
Today, Canon/Ikon customers are considering three alternatives: finding a good Canon service provider, sticking with IKON, or moving to another manufacturer - Konica/Minolta, Toshiba, Xerox, etc - all very good hardware choices.
There is more - the tumbling economy presents an opportunity for companies, with the help of Selling Professionals, to cut cost like never before.
The opportunity to redefine a costly, inefficient purchasing process by sweeping away the old and establishing a new more holistic approach to implementing print fleets and reducing the number of pages copied.
So while Canon/IKON customers evaluate their position and options, trying to figure out how to maintain their fleets, I suggest one more alternative - re-evaluate the Customer-Copier Dealer relationship in TOTAL.
Ask a simple question,
Who says companies EVEN NEED copiers today?
We know who: Ricoh, Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta, Sharp, Toshiba, Oce, Samsung and Kyocera that's who and for obvious reasons.
Sure, you may need a device or two that can copy documents coming from outside the organization - but how many of us, in the commercial world, still assemble anything more than a stapled document?
When speaking with current Canon customers, I suggest taking a deep breath and appraising the existing print fleet, print flows, printing structure, hard costs, soft costs AND the relationship with the current equipment supplier - are they a vendor or are they a Partner?
Additionally, observe the existing fleet through a prism of absolute need. Asking, "...do I need a copier here...? - back to basics.
This may seem foolish to some, bold to others, but at no other time in the last 20 years has a opportunity to change the model on such a fundamental level been presented: Back To The Beginning.
The New Born "Elephant in the Room" - Managed Print Services
The single goal of MPS engagements is to lower costs associate with printing - primarily achieved by reducing images printed and machines in field.
The days of an "assessment" leading to new hardware are fading fast, if not gone completely.
So one may ask, "...if a Managed Print Service engagement will reduce the number of copiers, how can a copier manufacturer approach Managed Print Services in an upfront manner...?"
The answer is complex. It starts with the definition of MPS or more specifically, who is defining MPS.
For now, the basic response is because copier companies are the only ones in a position to understand Managed Print Services - either as an ally or a foe.
Your Prospective:
Customer: Your choice is simple, the ramifications huge. Do you opt for more of the same, or get back to basics and boldly go forward in revolution?
Independent Dealers: Are you in or are you out?
Once again, your "days are numbered" - word of your demise is greatly exaggerated. As an independent, your are in the best position to profit from the turmoil. It takes commitment. It takes money. It takes vision, and you will need to burn your ships at the shore, again.
RiKon Account Exec, Sales Person: Do you stay with RiKON, jump over to Canon or join a smaller, more appreciative dealer? (Or do you go sell pharms.)
You have alternatives too - and there really aren't any "bad" choices.
Sales People in the Industry: The terrible economy will not last forever, and with all turmoil and upheaval, opportunity abounds on a personal level. Now is the time to evaluate your unique personal position in the world - to find who truly helps you for you, not for the corporate bottom line.
The Rikon deal, challenging economy, socialistic skewing of capitalism, all influence choices - "should I stay or should I go?" or maybe a more apropos statement is "...nobody moves, nobody gets hurt..."
Click to email me. 
Reported yesterday in the Columbian.com, HP is continuing it's downsizing of the Vancouver location and according to the article, "scraping its Edgeline team".
